600K bags of imported rice seen to stabilize prices in CV

3RD BATCH OF RICE IMPORTS to arrive in nov.

Around 600,000 bags of imported rice will be distributed in Central Visayas by the end of the year.

Olma Bayno, National Food Authority in Central Visayas information officer, said in a phone interview on Wednesday that this would be the region’s share of the third batch of rice importation of 750,000 metric tons of rice, which would be expected to arrive in November.

She said that the upcoming rice importation would be 25 percent broken rice and that would be sold to the market for P27 per kilo.

Bayno said the new batch of imported rice would stabilize the increasing prices of commercial rice in the market, especially with the NFA-7 having remaining stocks of 15 percent broken rice sold at P32 per kilo.

As of October 9, the NFA-7 has about 432,000 bags of rice while another 157,000 bags of imported rice have yet to be unloaded from the cargo vessels in Cebu International Port (CIP).

The NFA imported 25,000 metric tons of rice from Vietnam and Thailand which arrived at the Cebu last June.

Bayno, however, dismissed the allegation of having a rice shortage.

“Enough pa man ang atong stock sa bugas (We have enough stocks of rice),” she said.

NFA-7 is also intensifying its campaign to visit remote areas in the region through their rolling stores, especially in places with no NFA rice outlets.

In fact, she said that the NFA-7 has brought the rolling store campaign to Naga City in southern Cebu since Monday (October 8) where they sold affordable rice to landslide-affected residents.